The Worth of Death
by kiaronna
Summary: "Let me fall in the sweet grass with my blade in one hand and my honor in the other..."  Perhaps Hector views his fate a little differently.  An interpretation of Hector before the last battle.  I don't own FE...  sigh...


_A/N: Hector's so fun to write! An interpretation of our favorite lord and his relationship with his fate before the final battle._

When I handed Athos the axe, he fixed me with his billion year old eyes and just stared.

I could have burst out laughing.

The old man pitied me, pitied the boy he believed was scared of something like an axe-his own axe, at that- and a prediction. Elimine, a billion years old and he still couldn't get his fellow man figured out. Makes me wonder about the women.

The whispers are going through the camp as I clomp by, my armor on my back and my faithful Wolf Beil in my hand. Nah, I didn't need somebody else's axe to get me to the Dread Isle. I handled that by myself, with my friends at my side. They say I can't go peacefully now, and I'm bound to die hung up on the end of some fighter's weapon. Maybe so. Uther always said I was born with some sharp, annoying tool in my hand and an even more irking-if blunter- one in my mouth. Now I'll die with one in my heart. It isn't some sort of shocking revelation. Anyone here has already made the same commitment I just reaffirmed. They'd die in battle for those they loved and for the cause- isn't that the same? My death's a little more ensured, that's all.

"You'd better come out of this alive, milord," Oswin manages to instruct and show his care at the same time in an impressive knightly feat. My breath out through my nose is nothing less than a snort.

The possibility that my death will be in the next battle is always hovering over the preparation, but so far Elimine's deemed that she still hasn't got the courage to meet me up there.

Am I scared of death? Blast it all, of course I am. Any man is, I don't care what he says. Even if he swears he is ready for death, he will fight it with every muscle and will in his bloody body. I gave Athos the axe in a childish attempt to keep my death far away. I knew I would use it. Eliwood needs everything I can give, and with this final battle, it would be foolish to not even wield it, this... weapon I promised myself to. My death will not be meaningless. I will not fall to my knees until I am forced there.

_Didn't you want to die happily some day, resting in bed, surrounded by your closest friends and family?_ Lyn, Lyn the orphan by bandit attack, could imagine nothing more joyful.

I watched my parents die, but they moaned and cried and lashed out with pale flesh. They were not the proud, generous, strong people who had raised me. And Uther was most certainly forced to sit and wait for fate's axe to fall. They were reduced to limp corpses, just waiting to be transported to their coffins, still breathing and yet most certainly dead. For the first time all day, I shudder at the prospect of death. The weapon that kills me, that must kill me today, will be in an enemy's hands, and I will bring him down with me.

"Watch out there, young lord," Matthew calls, "Don't get too reckless."

Serra, far less tactful, screeches the translation and her own version: "This could be your last battle, Lord Hector! Are you sure you don't want to admit your feelings to me before you go? Then again, I'm sure you don't want your heart broken right before you go off and battle. And too, what a beauteous weeping widow I would become were you to-"

I roll my eyes and pray to Elimine that death by cleric is considered natural to Armads, because I am sure it is not peaceful.

My best friend claps a hand down on my left shoulder and the fiery beauty that is Lyn steps to my right. Florina, flushed at breathless just at being so close to two men at once, follows a footstep behind Lyn.

"Are you ready, Hector?" Eliwood asks, and I chuckle.

"G-good luck, Lord Hector!" The Pegasus Knight chirps, dying in pink agony at her boldness, and Lyn leans over to grin up at me.

"See you on the battlefield, you big lug."

Blast, forget that dead man and his stupid predictions. I'll live today, I'll live right up till the end, with the wind and a battle at my front and my friends at my back.

The old man is still staring with a bothersome all-knowing understanding at me in the mass of the marching army. He is hoping that I won't regret my decisions too much, that I do not live in unbearable anticipation.

He's going to have to stop doing this sort of thing or I'll end up laughing in his fluffy beard and giving him a heart attack.

To die by battle instead of peace? Let me fall in the sweet grass with my blade in one hand and my honor in the other, and have the rain wash me clean. Let my death be worth more than some reckless teenager's life, more than war. Let it serve my friends, my family, my people, in ways I can't, by sitting on a throne I won't fill.

Me, dying a bloody, unnatural, blessedly assured death? I grin and heft Armads up on my shoulder for one last battle. From what I see, this is the only way to go.

_A/N: I hope this actually goes along with Hector's real Fire Emblem lines. It's been a little bit... I just felt like this was Hector. I adore him and his loyal, blunt personality so much. I felt like he would have had a different interpretation of Armads' fate before the war with Nergal ended. Yes, he knows the danger, but Hector isn't just gonna sit there and let fate smack him around! He's gonna swing his axe and retaliate! As much as I hate to say it, Athos annoys me sometimes with his somber, ancient-ness. I still love him like I love everyone else in Fire Emblem. I hope you enjoyed this!_


End file.
